Chinese Whispers: the power of Weibo

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4.4 • 785 Ratings

🗓️ 13 December 2021

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When the tennis star Peng Shuai had a row with her former lover, the retired Party cadre Zhang Gaoli, she took to Weibo, the Chinese social media platform, where she had half a million followers. It was in that statement that she accused Zhang of starting their affair with sexual assault.

The statement was taken down within minutes, demonstrating the power, speed – and, arguably, the manual nature – of China’s online censors. On this podcast, we’ve previously talked about the nature of journalism in China – but what about social media, that inherently decentralised medium? What role does the digital space play in Chinese lives, how reliable is it as a source of Chinese public opinion, and how do people feel about being monitored and, potentially, censored?

On the podcast, Cindy Yu speaks to Manya Koetse, the founder of whatsonweibo.com, which collates and translates the latest trends and topics from the platform into English; as well as Shen Lu, a reporter for Protocol who covers China and tech.

With Manya, they muse about what censorship does to a nation's online discussion: the focus turns to policy issues like health and safety standards, or more superficial discussions like pets and travel. Yet during the early days of the pandemic last year, we both witnessed an incredible night where, on Weibo, WeChat, and other platforms, Dr Li Wenliang's death prompted a universal outpouring of grief. Manya tells Cindy that: ‘Dr Li was a story that was too big to censor... censoring all of those discussions would have actually caused more unrest’.

Since the pandemic, the digital sphere has also become more nationalistic:

'The Hong Kong protests definitely was the moment when I saw this new wave of nationalism online, which you’ve always had, but especially the last two years it’s been so clear. Covid-19 has only strengthened the wave that started back then’

Cindy also speaks to Shen Lu, who tells her about her experience being censored on Weibo when reporting on China's MeToo movement. Censorship has only become worse in recent years – she says: ' I can no longer tell which friend is which, because we started to self-censor'. More optimistically though, Lu tells Cindy that all the same political conversations among liberal minded young Chinese are still happening – simply offline, these days.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Subscribe to the Spectator magazine this Christmas and get the next 12 issues in print and online for just £12.
0:07.1	Not only that, but you'll also receive a bottle of Tattinger Champagne worth £42 to see you through to the new year.
0:13.5	Join the party today at www.spictator.com. UK forward slash celebrate.
0:34.4	Hello and welcome to Chinese Whispers with me, Cindy Yu. Every episode I'll be talking to journalists, experts and long-time China watches about the latest in
0:37.9	Chinese politics, society and more. There'll be a smattering of history to catch you up on the
0:42.8	background knowledge and some contacts as well. How did the Chinese see these issues?
0:48.7	When the tennis star, Peng Shui, had a row with her former lover, she took to Weibo, the Chinese
0:53.9	social media platform,
0:55.1	where she had half a million followers. It was in that statement that she accused Zhang of
0:59.4	starting their affair with sexual assault. The statement was taken down within minutes,
1:03.9	demonstrating the power, speed and arguably the manual nature of China's online censors.
1:09.5	On this podcast, we've previously talked about the nature
1:11.9	of journalism in China, but what about social media, that inherently decentralized medium? What role
1:17.6	does the digital space play in Chinese lives? How reliable is it as a source of Chinese public
1:22.8	opinion? And how do people feel about being monitored and potentially censored?
1:30.2	These are the questions I'll be asking today.
1:35.2	On the episode, I'm first speaking to Manja Kutz, founder of what's on Weibo.com,
1:39.1	a brilliant resource for English speakers to find out, well, what's on Weibo?
1:41.7	Mania, welcome to Chinese whispers.
1:44.6	To start with, can you tell me what Weibo is?
1:52.3	Weibo literally means micro blog, and the Weibo that we are talking about is actually Sina Weibo, which is one of the largest social media networks in China, and it was launched in 2009.
2:00.4	It used to be called the Chinese equivalent of Twitter,
	...

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